[HN Gopher] Human Accelerated Region 1
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Human Accelerated Region 1
Author : apollinaire
Score : 113 points
Date : 2026-04-17 03:55 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| red75prime wrote:
| Interesting. So, the human brain is the scaled-up monkey brain
| with significant architectural changes.
| samrus wrote:
| Implies intelligent design
|
| I think its rather some mutations that produced more reelin and
| created the most successful animal in earth's history
| borborigmus wrote:
| So Steely Dan documented this first?
| Miraltar wrote:
| The most successful animal by what metric?
| menno-dot-ai wrote:
| Tetris high scores, obviously
| totomz wrote:
| Some of us don't spend days looking for food, don't die of
| cold, and survive the flu...
|
| aaand we have Quake and Comand&Conquer - Red Alert
| tomxor wrote:
| > aaand we have Quake and Comand&Conquer - Red Alert
|
| Agreed, it would seem that evolutionary biology peaked in
| the late 90s then
| randallsquared wrote:
| As related in the documentary _The Matrix_.
| Nevermark wrote:
| The most successful at communicating their view that they
| are the most successful. Whether they are or not. But that
| means they are. By that metric.
|
| Has another animal proposed they are more successful by a
| different metric?
|
| Crickets?
| robbomacrae wrote:
| You sound like you've never been disdainfully stared at
| by a cat..
|
| Really interesting article though. I'm very hopeful AI
| can help work out how all these things interact.
| pegasus wrote:
| So, the most successful at arrogance? In other words, the
| least successful at humility? Ironically, since humble
| and human share a common root. Just playing devil's
| advocate here, but what you propose is not a good metric
| to maximize.
| vintermann wrote:
| > The most successful at communicating their view that
| they are the most successful
|
| To who? Other humans?
|
| It's seagull mating season where I am, and I don't speak
| seagull, but I'm pretty sure one of the things they're
| trying to convey to their fellow seagulls is that they're
| _extremely_ successful.
|
| Can't argue with it either. They're very much alive,
| which is the best you can be in this particular
| competition.
| dingdongditchme wrote:
| Corn, albeit not an animal has been pretty successful in
| terms of number of individuals. Their bi-pedal underlings
| have cleared swathes of land and take meticulous care of
| their well-being so they can bask in the sun undisturbed.
| ArekDymalski wrote:
| Until they are cut down and bombarded with micro waves by
| the very same bi-pedal underlings.
| WarmWash wrote:
| Mother nature hates weak things that die (that's why they
| get eliminated), so if we can make it to interplanetary
| species before killing ourselves, that would be a pretty
| huge sign of success. At least on mother natures benchmark.
| woadwarrior01 wrote:
| Merely implies a very good fitness function.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Yes. Though according this fitness function we're not
| necessarily more successful than a jellyfish or a tapeworm.
| somewhatgoated wrote:
| Arguably much less successful since jellyfish have been
| around 700+ million years ands it's not clear if humans
| will make it even the next couple thousand. But the jury
| is still out on that one
| Joker_vD wrote:
| I'd really rather liked it if that supposedly "intelligent"
| designer took a bit more time at designing the urogenital
| tract of human males.
| shmeeed wrote:
| What's wrong with it?
| MyelinatedT wrote:
| Separation of functions/concerns is not great, for
| starters.
|
| The testes are dangerously exposed, the plumbing is
| convoluted and failure-prone (and doesn't recover well
| from mechanical insults).
|
| The prostate, which serves no function outside of
| reproduction, lies inline with the urethra and quite
| consistently loses flexibility and becomes enlarged with
| age, causing all sorts of structural issues impacting
| basic urological function.
|
| Female reproductive vs urinary anatomy is largely
| physiologically distinct (proximity and UTI risk
| notwithstanding). Though plenty of room for improvement
| there too -- starting with endometrial tissue being far
| too prolific. Fun fact: endometrial tissue can migrate to
| the brain and cause haemorrhaging in severe cases of
| endometriosis.
|
| Plenty of room for improvement across the board, I'd say!
| hackrmn wrote:
| Hey, $DEITY did its absolute best with the constraints and
| the requirements. But hey, can't please everyone
| apparently. Be happy you can relieve yourself well past the
| intended warranty period. The parts were designed to be
| easily _aftermarket_ replaceable with sufficient advances
| in technology, retaining the fundamental design without
| changes.
| lexicality wrote:
| I'd like it if the vagus nerve didn't do a loop around my
| neck for no particular reason. (Giraffes would probably
| like that even more)
| dingdongditchme wrote:
| Is that a big concern? I've been pretty happy with my
| vagus nerve functionality until now... although I have
| not given it much thought to be fair.
| _joel wrote:
| I'm going to stick my neck out and say no.
| codeulike wrote:
| mine seems ok what version are you on
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Y'all get firmware updates?!
| ccozan wrote:
| I hope we don't vibe-evoluate....
| ahartmetz wrote:
| It's actually worse, but with robust unit tests.
| incognito124 wrote:
| I fail to see that, it's simply one of all other random
| mutations, it's just that this one has a big downstream
| effect of enabling other more complex mutations
| nurettin wrote:
| Intelligent mutations? How does that work?
| kryptiskt wrote:
| You're positing the existence of a far more advanced lifeform
| than merely a clever monkey with pretensions, which then
| somehow created said monkeys. That's like saying that it's
| easy to become a millionaire, just start with a billion
| dollars.
|
| That's not an explanation, you just replaced a problem with
| another harder one.
| utopiah wrote:
| What was the alternative?
| red75prime wrote:
| Scaling-up without significant architectural changes.
| mapleoin wrote:
| Or significant architectural changes without scaling up.
| Nevermark wrote:
| Or a single magic mutation.
|
| And if we ran an experiment where we gave it to some
| apes...
| cluckindan wrote:
| Let's observe their reactions to a big slab of obsidian.
| sudb wrote:
| huh, I always assumed they were metal-clad objects with
| something inside
|
| wikipedia tells me they are machines, but not what
| they're made of
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Like birds, let's say? There have been some articles on
| HN about how crows can be so intelligent with such a
| small (absolute size) brain.
| curiousObject wrote:
| Evolution would design the alternative to be something
| slightly less capable than the minimum. /s
|
| Really, the likelihood is that these mutations must have had
| an impact that far outweighs their space in the genome.
|
| That's how all our close competition got murdered by Homo
| Sapiens. Just significant difference in mental abilities.
| lukeify wrote:
| We didn't have any. The project manager set it at 3 story
| points.
| tclancy wrote:
| Which is why we think we're the center of the universe.
| timdiggerm wrote:
| What did you think it was before you read this brief Wikipedia
| article?
| xattt wrote:
| There has to be a car analogy for this.
| graemep wrote:
| Of course it is, and you could say the same with regard to
| mammalian brains in general. However the divergence starts very
| early in development (seven weeks) so is very big and very
| significant. By the time a human is born the brain is very
| different from a monkey's.
| yubblegum wrote:
| > HAR1A is active in the developing human brain between the 7th
| and 18th gestational weeks.
|
| Anyone know of a resource that layouts the temporal activation
| patterns for all the genes for the life cycle of a human being?
| bonsai_spool wrote:
| This can't be done reliably but you may want to look at Tabula
| Sapiens which doe some of what you'd like. It's not an obvious
| problem in lots of ways.
| yubblegum wrote:
| Thanks. Suprised no one has made a visualization (even if it
| has gaps).
|
| > It's not an obvious problem in lots of ways.
|
| Care to expand on this?
|
| Link for others:
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abl4896
|
| https://maayanlab.cloud/Harmonizome/dataset/Tabula+Sapiens+G.
| ..
| bonsai_spool wrote:
| I think people who aren't already experts in this aren't
| the right ones to try. For experts, the technical questions
| are very evident.
|
| You may also like GTEX and the Human Protein Atlas (which
| also has gene expression data)
| tgbugs wrote:
| Let's assume that you mean activation patterns at the level of
| single cells. Aside from the ethical issues which make it
| virtually impossible to obtain the full set of data, there is
| also the fact that the exact timing of expression is one of the
| major ways in which development produces variability in
| phenotype and so can vary wildly between individuals. The
| closest we have right now might be HUBMAP [0] or HCA [1], but I
| don't think that those had as objectives covering multiple
| developmental timepoints.
|
| 0. https://portal.hubmapconsortium.org/ 1.
| https://data.humancellatlas.org/
| yubblegum wrote:
| Thanks!
| stenl wrote:
| My group published a cell atlas of the developing human brain
| in 2023, giving gene expression in single cells from
| postconception week 5 to 13. It's on github:
| https://github.com/linnarsson-lab/developing-human-brain
|
| The NIH BRAIN initiative is working on the next generation of
| that, covering more timepoints and better spatial data.
| flufluflufluffy wrote:
| As others have said, a complete dataset for that is basically
| impossible. You would have to monitor every cell type in an
| individual from the moment of conception until death. Maybe in
| a couple hundred years we'll have nanotech robots that could do
| that, and our overall morals and ideas of what constitutes
| ethical research will have changed enough that we allow the
| creation of such humans with these robots inside them.
| liquid_thyme wrote:
| There are various types of triggers for gene activation, some
| genes turn on/off all the time (housekeeping), some follow the
| circadian rythm, some are immediate response, some are specific
| to specific phases of cell division, some are persistently on
| all the time, etc ,etc. Not sure what type of chart you're
| looking for.
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(page generated 2026-04-17 23:01 UTC)